Monday, November 30, 2009

Climate change in Kuwait Bay

National Oceanography Centre: Since 1985, seawater temperature in Kuwait Bay, northern Arabian Gulf, has increased on average 0.6°C per decade. This is about three times faster than the global average rate reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Differences are due to regional and local effects. Increased temperatures are having profound effects on key habitats and on power generation the Arabian Gulf.

Researcher Dr Thamer Al-Rashidi of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, said: “Because the waters of Kuwait Bay are well mixed by the tides, measurements of sea surface temperature can be used to assess temperature trends over time in the bay as a whole.” He and his colleagues used data on sea surface temperature (1985-2007) remotely sensed by a number of polar orbiting satellites to assess warming in Kuwait Bay and the Gulf region.

…They found that the sea surface temperature of Kuwait Bay increased over the period at an average rate of around 0.62°C per decade, with an uncertainty of plus or minus 0.01°C. This is about three times the rate of average global increase estimated by the IPCC.

The increase was greatest in the early summer and least during winter months. The length of summertime increased almost twice as fast as peak summertime temperature. In 1998 and 2003, the monthly measurements of sea surface temperature showed unusually high peaks in summer temperature coincident with El Niño events – periodic warming of the atmosphere and ocean affecting weather in many parts of the world.

Temperature dipped in 1991, in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. “Dense smoke from the burning of oil fields hung over the region blocking out the sun, and we believe that this atmospheric dimming caused the relatively low summertime temperature peak recorded that year,” said Dr Al-Rashidi, himself an officer in the Kuwaiti Navy. However, temperature then increased fairly steadily between 1992 and 2004. “What all of this tells us,” says Dr Al-Rashidi, “is that the global trends reported by the IPCC may not be representative locally.”…

NASA satellite images covered the Arabian Gulf (yearly average for 2006), this image show that the temperature increases generally towards the coastline. This is perhaps due to the heating effect of the local human activities which take place near the shoreline. The heating is about 2-3 ºC within 20 to 30 km from the shoreline.

June 2009 – At the studios of Cleanskies TV, I was interviewed about the costs of climate change, and discussed adaptation efforts underway in the US and around the world.

May 2009 – I helped draft the scenarios for Rising Waters, a multistakeholder scenarios effort focused on climate change adaptation in the Hudson Valley. The final report is now completed and available here.

May 2008 – I reviewed two books on climate and energy in the New Leader magazine: James Gustave Speth's The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, plus Robert Bryce's Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence.

January 2008 – A very local paper covers a very global issue.... The Litchfield County Times in northwestern Connectictut ran an article in January 2008 about Carbon-Based.

Now available: Climate Change Adaptation in 2011

A selection of my writings from 2011, plus some of my posts, as well as links... all focusing on the risks of climate change